When a reporter pointed out that people in both of those countries are starving due to oppressive governments, the former Olympian, who is running for a seat in Parliament, said: “Exactly. But there were sanctions and everything else. But the example is behavioral change.”

Cracknell’s comment comes amid reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is allegedly starving his people in order to fund his government’s development of nuclear weapons. Last year, his government warned North Koreans to prepare for a famine after their nuclear weapons tests spurred the United Nations to slap the country with tougher sanctions.

Cracknell got a lot of blowback on Twitter for his ridiculous remark, which he later acknowledged was a “stupid analogy,” before continuing to double down on the idea that government should be doing more to combat obesity.

As Reason magazine’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown pointed out, Cracknell’s rationale is similar to an article Cosmopolitan published in 2013 entitled: “Why Cosmo loves the ‘Cuban diet.'” It reads:

Cubans could no longer afford to be fat. In that five-year period, they lost an average of around five kilos per person, which is over 11lbs. As a result of people getting slimmer, they also started living longer, with fewer Cubans dying of diabetes and heart disease.

All of which is fantastic – except it didn’t last. When the crisis ended, people started eating more and moving less and putting all that weight back on until, in the mid 2000s, they were right back where they started.